Low Frequency
by undeadstoryteller
Summary: Lloyd Pinkie has a breakthrough on inter-type cohabitation while conducting surveillance on Windsor Terrace; Kemp forms an idea on how to make John Mitchell understand the pain caused by vampires. Takes place just after episode 2.2.


_**Windsor Terrace, Night**_

"You ok?"

Annie didn't move. "I'm fine,"she said quietly.

Mitchell stepped into the darkened lounge. "You're not fine." He sat down beside her. "That was really traumatic, what happened."

"You have no idea."

"I do," he said. "I mean, I wasn't there, but…" he paused. "How did they do that, with the radio?"

"I don't know."

Mitchell shook his head. "He was a real bastard. But he saved you."

Annie looked at him. "What? Wait, how do you know that?"

"I don't know," he said. "I just got this flash. I could see his face..."

"Saul's face?"

"Yeah."

They sat in silence.

"Look," Mitchell said, finally. "l know you want to go out and live as much as you can. We all want to. I don't know, something about what happened with Herrick made it seem like we could do anything, like the curses were broken... but we can't kid ourselves. It's dangerous out there -"

"I'm not visible anymore, Mitchell. I can't go out and 'live' anymore. Are you happy now?"

"No. No, that's not what I want. But you have to be careful..."

"So just sit in my room all day long? Every day? What's the point?"

"They're after you. I can't stop that. It's not like protecting you from vampires."

"Exactly. What makes you think I'm any safer here? What's stopping them?"

"Jesus, Annie -"

"Why do we even think it's safe?"

Mitchell paused. "Because this is our home."

"It's not the same. It's not the same anymore. And I'm not going to sit in a corner day after day -"

"You went out. You tried it. And the first person you meet tries to kill you, Annie..."

"It wasn't him. He was being controlled somehow -"

"He was a human."

"He was… sort of in-between. He'd had some kind of near death experience."

Mitchell paused. "What, so -"

"He saw them. He saw the men."

"Jesus." He stood up and started to pace. "Jesus, Annie, they can use people who've had a near death experience? That could be anyone."

"It was a coincidence."

"No," Mitchell said. "No, we can't think like that. There are no coincidences, nothing just happens. We can't trust anyone."

"I'm not living like that."

"Listen to me... we can't trust _anyone_. Especially ..."

_Rewind_

_"-stop that. It's not like-"_

_Rewind_

_"-can't kid ourselves-"_

_Rewind_

_"-don't know. I just got this flash. I could see his face."_

_Rewind_

_"-this flash. I could see his face."_

_Stop._

* * *

Lloyd wasn't in it for vengeance. He wasn't in it to play some kind of morality police, or even to hunt monsters. He wanted to learn. And he had - he'd learned more about supernaturals in the last few months than he had learned in all of his work before that. Coming face to face with John Mitchell, and George Sands, and even - he was convinced - the real Annie Sawyer, looking as alive as anyone, had been the highlight of his career. To monitor them, their routines and conversations, was a dream come true. And with every day of surveillance, he came to see them as... well, not human. But what he heard in that house was not evil, he was convinced of that. These beings cared about each other. They would fight for one another.

The Professor and Kemp would be impressed with his findings. But he was going to have to really sell his theory.

"Do you have the day's transcripts?" Kemp asked, seated across from the Professor at her paper-strewn desk.

"Yes," Lloyd said, holding the papers in his hands and a fat, leather bound book under his arm. "I've worked out the frequencies to where I can hear our Type 2 almost clear as day. I thought we'd lost her." He held up the transcript to begin reading and cleared his throat.

"Just the highlights," the Professor said, lighting a cigarette.

"Right," Lloyd said nervously. "Well. The big thing I learned was that there was an incident with the Type 2 at the hospital. It happened around the same time the Types 1 and 3 were carrying out their plan with the fugitive Type 1, but I don't think the incidents were related. It seems -" he took a deep breath, "that the Type 2 was attacked by another Type 2 and nearly forced through a portal."

Kemp straightened up. "Nearly?"

Lloyd nodded. "Very nearly."

"She cheated death yet again," Kemp said flatly.

"She did," Lloyd said.

"So you're saying the Type 2 is being hunted?" The Professor asked.

"Well, yes," Lloyd said. "But what's intriguing is that the Type 1 -"

"Mitchell."

"Mitchell, if we're being familiar. He wasn't there, but he ... it was almost like he'd experienced it." He looked from the Professor to Kemp. "These supernaturals, they don't just share a house. It's as if they're connected."

"Well, Type 2s are known to form bonds with places, people," Kemp said.

"But not with vampires," the Professor said. "It's not possible. He isn't alive."

"Neither is a house, or a dress, or... there are plenty of examples of Type 2s anchoring to things that aren't alive."

The Professor sat back.

"What did he experience?" Kemp asked.

Lloyd pulled the book out from under his arm. "I've been doing some research -"

Kemp leaned toward him. "What did the Type 1 experience?"

"I don't know. He said it was traumatic, he saw the other Type 2's face-"

"Traumatic how?"

"I'll let you read the transcripts yourself," Lloyd said. "The point is, they have a connection." He opened the book and flipped to a marked page.

"We would expect them to have some kind of psychological attachment," the Professor said.

"It's more than that," Lloyd said. "Look here," he pointed to the page. "This is an old ritual, the only one of its kind that requires a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost. And they can't be randomly selected. They need to have a bond. A bond we didn't think was possible between types."

"What does the ritual do?" The Professor asked.

"Oh," Kemp sneered, "don't encourage this, Professor."

Lloyd winced. "It's a very powerful ritual that… the only way I can describe it is that it overpowers evil."

Kemp shook his head. "You come in here and bring us fairytales?"

Lloyd huffed. "It's not a - look. Type 1s on their own are evil. Type 2s, Type 3s, they can be destructive on their own. But if they come together, it's a force of -"

"Good?" Kemp asked incredulously.

"I'm saying we shouldn't interfere here. This could potentially be the answer to these curses -"

"There's absolutely no proof of that," the Professor said.

"There's evidence-"

"Strictly anecdotal," she said. "I've spent time with Mitchell. He isn't the type to perform superstitious rituals."

"Isn't the type? Do you think he's going to talk about it in the hospital canteen?"

"There's no evidence of anything like that from our surveillance. If anything, they're living painfully mundane lives."

"You think there was nothing ritualistic about the incident with Sawyer's killer? He said they trapped him, circled him - he was driven mad!"

"It wasn't exactly an ancient blood ritual."

"We don't know what it was. Isn't that the whole point of this, to find out what it was?"

"That isn't the priority, no," she said.

"What we're doing is tearing them apart," Lloyd said. "All I'm saying is we need to consider the potential consequences."

Kemp cut in. "The goal is to find and destroy as many Type 1s as we can."

Lloyd looked at him. "When has that ever been the goal of our research? We were looking for solutions-"

"And we found one, when we were led to John Mitchell," Kemp said. "If it were up to me -"

"It's not up to you," the Professor said.

Kemp stood up, reached over and grabbed the transcripts.

"Your input has been noted, Mr. Pinkie. Good day."


End file.
